Bman's Blues Report

This is a followup to a rant that I wrote about a month ago (December 17, 2011). I was commenting about all of the media that continues with the mantra "Keeping the Blues Alive". The Chicago Tribune even thought it news worthy to do a 4 part story story beginning In June and concluding in December about the health of the blues. I'm confused! The writer in the Trib makes some valid points and discusses the health of the business of blues as a weather vane of health. I understand where he is coming from and of course... news is all about sensationalism [I don't get the Chicago Trib (in AZ)] and the article was brought to my attention after the publishing of my article. But I think the guy was calling up some good points. Here are links to his article for those who missed it. Part 1: Can an ancestral art form survive? Part 2: Blues 101: A new generation tries to learn | Photos | Video Part 3: Playing the blues in black AND white | Photos Part 4: Is This The Twili...

A longtime fixture in New Orleans, Emanuel Sayles (b - January 31, 1907)was a valuable supportive player and an occasional soloist for decades. Although he studied violin and viola early on, Sayles was self-taught on banjo and guitar. After attending high school in Pensacola, Florida, he moved to New Orleans where he played with William Ridgley’s Tuxedo Orchestra. Sayles worked with Fate Marable, Armand Piron and Sidney Desvigne on riverboats and in 1929 recorded with the Jones-Collins Astoria Hot Eight. After moving to Chicago in 1933, Sayles led his own band and worked extensively as a sideman in both jazz and blues settings, recording with Roosevelt Sykes. He moved back to New Orleans in 1949, performing with most of the top local players including George Lewis (who he toured Japan with in 1963-64) and Sweet Emma Barrett. Sayles worked in Cleveland with Punch Miller in 1960 and spent a few years (1965-67) in Chicago working as a house musician at Jazz Ltd. After coming back to New O...

Alan Lomax (January 31, 1915 – July 19, 2002) was an American folklorist and ethnomusicologist. He was one of the great field collectors of folk music of the 20th century, recording thousands of songs in the United States, Great Britain, Ireland, the Caribbean, Italy, and Spain. In his later career, Lomax advanced his theories of Cantometrics, the sampling and statistical analysis of folk music, with the help of collaborators Victor Grauer and Roswell Rudd. Lomax was the son of pioneering folklorist and author John A. Lomax, with whom he started his career by recording songs sung by sharecroppers and prisoners in Texas, Louisiana, and Mississippi. Because of frail health he was mostly home schooled, but attended The Choate School (now Choate Rosemary Hall) for a year, graduating in 1930 at age 15.[1] He enrolled at the University of Texas at Austin in 1930 and the following year studied philosophy at Harvard but upon his mother's death interrupted his education to console his fathe...

Paul Joseph deLay (January 31, 1952 – March 7, 2007), was an American blues vocalist and harmonicist from Portland, Oregon. Paul deLay was born January 31, 1952 in Portland, Oregon. His musical career started in the early 1970s with a band called "Brown Sugar", which played numerous West Coast gigs. In 1976, he and guitarist Jim Mesi formed the Paul deLay Blues Band, which performed well into the 1980s. The band also recorded several albums during that time. By the late 1980s, deLay was suffering from alcohol and cocaine addiction. In 1990, he was arrested for drug trafficking, and served a 41-month prison sentence. While he was incarcerated, his band continued without him, performing as the "No deLay Band" and featuring longtime Portland blueswoman Linda Hornbuckle as lead vocalist in lieu of deLay. Upon his release from prison, deLay (now clean and sober) rejoined the band and recorded a series of critically acclaimed albums. In 2002 deLay assembled the final vers...

Big Time Sarah, (born January 31, 1953, Coldwater, Mississippi) is an American blues singer. Sarah Streeter was raised in Chicago, Illinois, from early childhood, where she sang in gospel choirs in South Chicago churches. At age 14, she began singing blues at the Morgan's Lounge Club, and in the 1970s she played with musicians such as Magic Slim, Buddy Guy, The Aces, Junior Wells, Johnny Bernard, and Erwin Helfer. Her experience playing with Sunnyland Slim led to her first solo release, a single released on his label, Airways Records. Teamed with Zora Young and Bonnie Lee in 'Blues with the Girls', Sarah toured Europe in 1982 and recorded an album in Paris, France. From 1989 she performed with a group called The Big Time Express. Since 1993 she has recorded for Delmark Records. Write on our Facebook Wall or post your Photos of great blues events! -  Here

Clarence Clifford "CC/Peg" Richardson (December 18, 1918 - January 30, 1984), Sumter, SC. Richardson got his foot in the blues doorway by performing in his uncle"s quartet in Brown Chapel Church in Sumter, SC. Sadly, he lost part of one foot in a train accident as a child. He performed in bands with such notable leaders as Jay McShann and Nat Cole and claimed to be influenced most by Blind Boy Fuller. Write on our Facebook Wall or post your Photos of great blues events! -  ”LIKE”

Mance Lipscomb (April 9, 1895 – January 30, 1976) was an American blues singer, guitarist and songster. Born Beau De Glen Lipscomb near Navasota, Texas, United States, he as a youth took the name of 'Mance' from a friend of his oldest brother Charlie ("Mance" being short for emancipation) Lipscomb was born April 9, 1895 to an ex-slave father from Alabama and a half Native American (Choctaw) mother. Lipscomb spent most of his life working as a tenant farmer in Texas and was "discovered" and recorded by Mack McCormick and Chris Strachwitz in 1960 during the country blues revival. He released many albums of blues, ragtime, Tin Pan Alley and folk music (most of them on Strachwitz' Arhoolie label), singing and accompanying himself on acoustic guitar. He had a ffinger-picking guitar technique, and an expressive voice. Lipscomb often honed his skills by playing in nearby Brenham, Texas, with a blind musician, Sam Rogers. His debut release was Texas Songster (19...

In the blues world, a big voice is often accompanied by a big ego (or at least a medium sized one…) But the Danish singer Thorbjørn Risager, praised for his rough and strong voice by an unanimous choir of critics from a growing number of countries – 15 the last time we counted them - is a soft-spoken gentleman off stage. He is the leader of his seven-piece band mainly for practical reasons – to bring any little issue into a group discussion can be quite time-consuming. He is also composing most of the band’s music, and during the performance he is the obvious center of attention, even if the band has a charming way of passing round the task of introducing the songs between them, so that each musician gets his word in. And this is a real smooth organization, who has divided all practical tasks such as web master, CD sales on gigs etc beween themselves. Which makes life easier in the midst of their heavy touring schedule. Since the start, they have played in 15 countreis, and only from F...

I may not be American, or descended from slaves, or have a working class man for a father, or used to work on a banana plantation, but I got the blues so bad, that I got to get it out there! I love playing the blues and singing the blues and I have a little combination that is making that blues sit and up dance for you. I have always loved music and sung and played music, but for me, blues is where it's at, especially when it comes to playing how you feel. I first picked up the harmonica after seeing local legend Mojo Webb play. I did my blues apprenticeship at the late Satchmo's Bar in West End, learning the way to do it at the Monday jams. I started my own band - Jimi Beavis and the 385s - in 2007 and we went on to win the Blues Association of South-East Queensland's Performer of the Year in 2009. We played at Woodford Folk Festival, Sunshine Coast Blues Festival, Brisbane Blues Festival and the Australian Blues Festival in Goulburn before I changed to the current line-u...

Sydney began her singing career in the Los Angeles area when, on the day after her 44th birthday, in 1991, she got her nerve up and climbed up onto a session stage. The dream comes true. Since then, her singing has blossomed into an obsession for what Sydney calls, her "Cultural Heritage" , or "African-American Folk Music" . The rest of the world calls it "Blues, Classic Jazz, Gospel, Spirituals, New Orleans Jazz & Blues, R & B, Chicago Blues, & Kansas City Blues". This obsession has taken her in 3 short years from the Los Angeles area to Europe. Since 1995, Sydney has performed over 1,000 concerts in 25 countries. Scheduled venues for 2011 include; Germany, Switzerland, The Netherlands and Austria. Past years have given Sydney the opportunity to perform in Spain, France, Danmark, Belgium, Liechtenstein Luxembourg, Norway, Georgia, Finland, Bulgaria, Serbia, Hungary, Tunisia, Croatia, Slovakia, The Ukraine, Lithuania, Poland, The Czech Republic...

Ruth Brown (January 12, 1928 – November 17, 2006) was an American pop and R&B singer-songwriter, record producer, composer and actress, noted for bringing a pop music style to R&B music in a series of hit songs for Atlantic Records in the 1950s, such as "So Long", "Teardrops from My Eyes" and "(Mama) He Treats Your Daughter Mean". For these contributions, Atlantic became known as "The house that Ruth built" (alluding to the popular nickname for Old Yankee Stadium). Following a resurgence that began in the mid-1970s and peaked in the 1980s, Brown used her influence to press for musicians' rights regarding royalties and contracts, which led to the founding of the Rhythm and Blues Foundation. Her performances in the Broadway musical, Black and Blue, earned Brown a Tony Award, and the original cast recording won a Grammy Award. Write on our Facebook Wall or post your Photos of great blues events! -  ”LIKE”

I've never seen this before. I'm sure some others will like it!Sam John Hopkins (March 15, 1912 – January 30, 1982) better known as Lightnin’ Hopkins, was an American country blues singer, songwriter, guitarist and occasional pianist, from Houston, Texas. Rolling Stone magazine included Hopkins at number 71 on their list of the 100 greatest guitarists of all time. Robert "Mack" McCormick stated, "Hopkins is the embodiment of the jazz-and-poetry spirit, representing its ancient form in the single creator whose words and music are one act" Born Sam John Hopkins in Centerville, Texas, Hopkins' childhood was immersed in the sounds of the blues and he developed a deeper appreciation at the age of 8 when he met Blind Lemon Jefferson at a church picnic in Buffalo, Texas. That day, Hopkins felt the blues was "in him" and went on to learn from his older (somewhat distant) cousin, country blues singer Alger "Texas" Alexander. Hopkins had anothe...

Due to popular demand, Australian power rock trio “TRACER” kick off their first nationwide headline UK tour at London’s Islington O2 Academy on Tuesday 24th April. Planet Rock ( www.planetrock.com ) will start a 48-hour ticket pre-sale for Planet Rock listeners from Wednesday 1st February at 9am . www.ents24.com will start their 24-hour pre-sale on Thursday 2nd February. Tickets will then go on sale to the general public from 10am on Friday 3rd February via the 24 hour box office: 0844 478 0898 and www.thegigcartel.com . TRACER - "SPACES IN BETWEEN" APRIL 2012 UK TOUR 24 Hour Box Office – 0844 478 0898 www.thegigcartel.com Tuesday 24th April 2012 Islington O2 Academy 2, London £9.00 advance / £11.00 door 0844 477 2000 www.o2academyislington.co.uk N1 Centre, 16 Parkfield Street, Islington, London, N1 0PS Wednesday 25th April 2012 The Tunnels, Bristol £8.00 adv...

Karen Carroll (born January 30, 1958, Chicago, Illinois, United States) is an American Chicago blues singer. She was born to parents Mack Carroll and Alberta Simmons Carroll (stage name: Jeanne Carroll). Her godparents were the jazz guitarist George Freeman and blues vocalist Bonnie Lee. Carroll started singing in church at the age of six. Her first appearance was on stage playing guitar with her mother's band at age 14. Early in her career she worked with Katie Webster and Albert King. She recorded her first song with Carey Bell on his album, Son of a Gun in 1983. Carroll went on to tour with Eddie Lusk in Canada, after recording his album Professor Strut in 1989. She went on to play at some big Chicago blues clubs. In 1995, Carroll worked on an album with five other female blues artists called Women of Blue Chicago, and it is still being played on the radio today. She was offered her own recording contract by Delmark Records in 1995, subsequently making the album Had My Fun. This...

Although I can find very little biographical info on Johnny he seems to have been a staple in the San Francisco Blues scene for quite some time playing with numerous significant artists. Write on our Facebook Wall or post your Photos of great blues events! -  ”LIKE”

Guitarist from Ft. Worth a member of the "Sundown Collection" and later on backed up Lloyd Price and then started his own band called the Cold Cuts. We had a couple of benenfits for him - one in Houston with Bonnie Raitt, Jimmy Vaughn and Kim Wilson (of the Fabulous Thunderbirds) and Delbert McClinton. I played on that one and then put together a benefit at the Caravan of Dreams with help from David Hickey (who still books Delbert). That one had my band, Red and the Red Hots with Delbert singing a couple of songs, the Juke Jumpers with special guest T-Bone Burnett and a few others whom I can't recall at this time. We raised enough money to cover all the hospital expenses and some left over which his wife started a Jimmy Don Smith scholarship which last time I talked to his wife had excess of $35,000 in it. One of my big memories was in 1982 when I was touring with Eric Burdon and Jimmy's band opened for us (with Freddie Cisneros) at the Agoura in Dallas. Comments by M...

Adell Hall Ward, better known as Vera Hall (April 6, 1902 – January 29, 1964) was an American folk singer, born in Livingston, Alabama, United States. She is best known for her song "Trouble So Hard" (1937). Hall grew up near Livingston, Alabama. Hall sang her entire life, her mother and father, Agnes Efron and Zully Hall, taught her songs such as "I Got the Home", "In the Rock", and "When I'm Standing Wondering, Lord, Show Me the Way". Hall married Nash Riddle, a coal miner, in 1917 and gave birth to their daughter, Minnie Ada. Riddle was killed in 1920. In the late 1930s Hall's singing gained national exposure. John Avery Lomax, ethnomusicologist, met Hall in the 1930s and recorded her for the Library of Congress. Lomax wrote that she had the loveliest voice [he] had ever recorded.[citation needed] The BBC played Hall's recording of "Another Man Done Gone" in 1943 as a sample of American folk music. The Library of Congress...

Jesse Fuller (March 12, 1896 — January 29, 1976) was an American one-man band musician, best known for his song "San Francisco Bay Blues" Fuller was born in Jonesboro, Georgia, near Atlanta. He was sent by his mother to live with foster parents when he was a young child, in a rural setting where he was badly mistreated. Growing up, he worked a multitude of jobs: grazing cows for ten cents a day, working in a barrel factory, a broom factory, a rock quarry, on a railroad and a streetcar company, shining shoes, and even peddling hand-carved wooden snakes. He came west and in the 1920s worked briefly as a film extra in The Thief of Bagdad and East of Suez. Eventually he settled in Oakland, California, across the bay from San Francisco, where he worked for the Southern Pacific railroad. During World War II, he worked as a shipyard welder, but when the war ended he found it increasingly difficult to find work. Around the early 1950s, Fuller's thoughts turned toward the possibil...

Ted Bogan was one of the greatest musical artists to ever emerge from Spartanburg, SC, or "South Cackalacky," as the natives would describe it. Bogan was something like a growth from a massive tulip bulb, a bloom that for some reason was never allowed to fully open. He performed and recorded beautifully throughout a career that spanned more than half a century, but was mostly known as a member of the string bands variously known as Martin, Bogan & Armstrong or Martin, Bogan & the Armstrongs. The various members played in many other formations, including the New Mississippi Sheiks, over the years, but at the crux of it all was a strange relationship between Bogan and Howard Armstrong that seems to have rivaled the hate-fest of Brownie McGhee and Sonny Terry. Most important, however, is that Bogan was not just a country bluesman, but a skilled and versatile purveyor of a variety of classic styles who apparently held his own up against no less a genius guitarist than Les...

Joe Robinson (born 25 May 1991), is an Australian guitar player. Robinson is most famous for his fast-paced fingerpicking style and being the winner of the 2008 series of Australia's Got Talent. Robinson was born in Temagog, New South Wales, Australia. He started playing piano at the age of six, only because he was told his fingers were too small to play the guitar. Aged ten, he quit and began to play the guitar. He outgrew his guitar teacher in less than 12 months, and he started to teach himself from the internet. At the age of 11, Joe began touring with different Australian artists, including Tommy Emmanuel whom Joe considers his mentor. Winning the Australian National Songwriting Competition at age 13, it was clear to everybody around him that Joe was developing a unique gift. In 2006 he recorded his debut album titled Birdseed, produced by Parris Macleod at Cloud Studios near Wyong, New South Wales. Robinson composed all but 2 of the tracks for this release. At the age 16, Rob...

Hollywood Fats (May 17, 1954 – December 8, 1986) was an American blues guitarist, active in Los Angeles, California. Hollywood Fats was born Michael Leonard Mann in Los Angeles, and started playing guitar at the age of 10. While in his teens, his mother would drive him to various clubs in South Central Los Angeles to jam with well-known blues musicians when they came to town. Hollywood Fats' father was a doctor and his siblings went on to become doctors and lawyers. He met Buddy Guy and Junior Wells who gave him the nickname. Hollywood Fats toured with James Harman, Jimmy Witherspoon, J. B. Hutto, John Lee Hooker, Muddy Waters, and Albert King. During the 1970s and 1980s he worked with the blues harmonica player and singer James Harman. He played on a number of his records including Extra Napkin's, Mo' Na'Kins, Please and Live in '85. Other guitarists with whom he played included Junior Watson, Kid Ramos and Dave Alvin. Hollywood Fats was invited to be a sideman to ...

Most of you don't know because this is my first birthday writing my report but I have a tradition of going home (to Pennsylvania) to see my parents (now parent) on my mothers birthday which is only a few days before my own. Today is my birthday and in rural Pennsylvania away from the city you visit family and such stuff. One of the things that I have always loved to do is visit some of the small town antique stores as I love old stuff. I'm not really an antique guy... in fact my furnishings are more steel and leather but I have a real fondness for old stuff. Old tools, old pieces of wood and steel, old photos but especially old gear. I came across (or received) 3 really cool things while here in small town USA. First I received a photograph of a childhood friend who died many years ago. I'll tell you why this is so unusual. My friend was black and born in the 19th century. One of his family friends had heard that I was looking for a photo of him and now I have it. It's ...

I have been listening to an interesting release called STEEL GUITAR a blues opera by Pete Herzog. Pete has put in an incredible amount of work on this 49 (22 songs) track forage into his thoughts about where an ancient guitar may have been prior to his coming to play it. Pete tells tales of possible journeys, events and life experiences that the instrument may carry as he accompanies himself on guitar and sings songs. Pete has a good voice for this type of playing and has good command of his instrument, The release is well thought through, interesting and well played. Nice job Pete! Write on our Facebook Wall or post your Photos of great blues events! -  ”LIKE”

William Everett "Billy" Preston (September 2, 1946 – June 6, 2006) was a musician who gained notoriety and fame, first as a session musician for the likes of Sam Cooke, Ray Charles and The Beatles, and later finding fame as a solo artist with hits such as "Space Race", "Will It Go Round in Circles" and "Nothing from Nothing". Alongside Tony Sheridan, Billy Preston was the only other musician to be credited on a Beatles recording after he was credited on the group's number-one hit, "Get Back", with the record title listed as The Beatles with Billy Preston. William Everett Preston was born on September 2, 1946 in Houston, Texas. At the age of three, the family moved to Los Angeles where Preston began playing piano while sitting on his mother Robbie's lap. Noted as a child prodigy, by the age of ten, Preston was playing organ onstage backing several gospel singers such as Mahalia Jackson, James Cleveland and Andrae Crouch. At twelv...

The piano work of John Davis was featured on blues records by the score during the '30s and '40s. His accompaniments to Tampa Red, Sonny Boy Williamson, Big Bill Broonzy, and others brought him fame as a blues musician, but like his piano compatriot Little Brother Montgomery, Davis did not care to be typecast as such and often expressed a preference for the sweet, sentimental favorites he played in countless piano lounges. But as with Montgomery, most of Davis's own recording opportunities came from blues companies, and he never failed to acquit himself well when it came to blues and boogie-woogie. He was the first pianist to do a European blues tour (with Broonzy in 1952), returning to the continent frequently as a solo act during the '70s and '80s. With blues-piano appreciation in Europe being what it is and has been, it's not surprising that most of the albums of Blind John Davis were recorded there and not in Chicago, his home from the age of two until his d...